Beam gives viewers the ability to "watch and play along with their favorite game streamers in real time," said Microsoft in its announcement. From Microsoft's blog post, it looks like Microsoft plans to incorporate Beam's technology with Xbox Live and Minecraft.

Update: A Microsoft spokesperson emailed me the following clarification re: Minecraft. "Beam interactivity is easy for streamers to enable and customize and is designed to work with any game. Minecraft is one of several Xbox games on Beam, but we have not announced any plans to integrate Beam technology into Microsoft Studios titles."

In spite of console losses, Microsoft continues to keep its hand in gaming because games are the biggest app category in the mobile space. Given Microsoft's focus on the cloud, services like Xbox Live are also critical to Microsoft's monetization strategy, moving forward.

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